HERE’S one from the ‘simple ideas are the best’ department: a double-barrelled syringe that could prevent blood tests becoming contaminated with skin bacteria and giving the wrong results.
To test for blood infections, a sample is drawn from a patient’s vein and cultured to see if bacteria are present. Ideally the skin puncture site should be thoroughly sterilised, but this takes up to 2 minutes and the process is often cut short, resulting in contamination of around 6 per cent of the 6 million blood cultures performed every year in the US alone.
The solution, dreamed up by microbiologist-turned-inventor Juan…
